Chapter 14

I got into my car and drove out of the parking lot. My hands shook as I drove and I was fighting back tears. It got to be so bad that I pulled over, and drove into the back of a strip mall and turned off the car. I put my head on the steering wheel and let the tears come. I could feel my whole body shake as the sobs ripped through me. I don’t know how long I cried, but when the tears finally subsided I picked my head back up.

I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror and was shocked at my appearance. The mascara I had put on had run down my face. My eyes were red and bloodshot and there was a red line on my forehead where it had rested against the steering wheel. I grabbed a tissue out of the glove compartment and wiped the tears and black streaks off of my face.

I took one last deep breath before starting up my car and pulling back out onto the road. I turned on the radio and forced myself to pay attention to the songs playing so that I wouldn’t think of Corey. When I got home I walked inside and popped open a bottle of wine. I downed a third glass that day before seeing that it was only 2:30.

What the hell was wrong with me? I put the bottle of Riesling back in the refrigerator and sank down into a chair at the island in the kitchen. I’d done what I thought was right and said goodbye to Corey. Unfortunately I also felt like my heart was breaking, which was ridiculous. I picked up my phone and dialed.

“Sweetie, I can’t talk,” Jordan said when he picked up after the sixth ring.

“I really need to talk to you right now. Please,” I begged. He sighed.

“Lia, I can’t. I’m sorry. I’ll call you back later.” He hung up before I could say anything else.

I let out a yell and threw my phone across the room. It hit the back of the couch and fell with a thud to the ground. I did the next best thing I could think of and walked into my bedroom. I closed all the curtains and got into bed. I pulled the comforter over my head so it was completely dark and I fell asleep.

“Amelia! Amelia, wake up!” I heard someone yelling. I pulled my head out from under the comforter and saw Brianna standing above me.

“What?” I asked. She shook her head at me and pulled the blankets completely off of me.

“You missed dinner. What is wrong with you?” Oh shit, I’d had dinner plans with her.

“I’m sorry, I had a rough day,” I told her as I sat up. She sighed and sat down next to me.

“What happened?”

“I had lunch with Corey.” I’d told her about his drunken phone call while I was still in Vancouver. She threw her head back and sighed again.

“How did it go?” I felt the tears coming again.

“I told him goodbye,” I whispered. She looked at me sympathetically and pulled me into a hug.

“I’m sorry, Lia.” I just nodded before pulling away.

“Sorry I missed dinner,” I apologized. She smiled.

“Well, we can figure something else out. What do you have in mind?” she asked standing up and walking out of the bedroom.

A few days later I was sitting in my living room flipping through channels when I saw a Ducks commercial. Corey was in it and I felt sick. I thought again about the lunch and about how I’d lied to him when I told him all my feelings for him were in the past. I began to feel guilty about how I’d treated him the last few years. Before I could stop myself I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Amelia?” I heard his confused voice answer.

“Hey, I was just wondering if Ileana was back in town,” I told him.

“No she’s not. Why?” he asked. I took a deep breath.

“Can you come over tonight? I’ll cook some dinner. I just want to talk to you about something.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

“Yeah. It’s really important.”

He agreed and we set a time. I made my way to the store and bought supplies for dinner. I didn’t cook often, and only had a limited number of recipes, but I figured it was best not to talk in public. I got home and cleaned up a little before starting dinner. There was a knock on the door right on time and I opened it to Corey standing there with a bottle of Shiraz.

“Thank you. Come on in,” I said taking the bottle and moving aside. He smiled and walked in, and I closed the door behind him.

“It smells good,” he commented. I laughed.

“It’s only fajitas.” He laughed too.

“Your specialty,” he joked.

I jerked my head towards the kitchen and he followed me in. I pulled out a corkscrew and opened the wine, pouring it into two glasses. I finished off the fajitas and dumped the contents into a bowl. We forced some small talk as we sat at the island and ate. Trying to delay the inevitable I began to clean up when we were done. He got up and grabbed my arm to stop me.

“Amelia, what do you want to talk about?” he asked.

I looked into his eyes and panicked. I pulled my arm from his grasp and walked into the living room. I sat down on the couch and put my head in my hands, attempting to stop the tears from coming. I heard him walk in and felt him sit on the couch next to me. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a hug. I composed myself and looked up at him.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I apologized.

“For what?” he asked.

“For just leaving three years ago. I shouldn’t have done it,” I told him. He bit his lip and sighed.

“Amelia, I-“ I cut him off. I just had to say it and get it over with.

“No, please. I have to just get this out. Cor, I loved you, so much. I would have done anything for you. I just had dreams too. You knew I wanted to act, and there was no way I could do that in Maine. In a way I felt betrayed. I had supported you for four years with hockey, and I was still supporting you, but when I talked about my dreams I felt like you laughed them off. I needed to try, to see if I could be successful, but you wouldn’t listen. That’s why I left. I left you to follow my dreams.” I paused before continuing. Corey took advantage of the silence.

“So you thought it best to disappear?” he choked out. The tears came now. There was no holding them back anymore.

“I was scared. You had practically begged me to go to Maine with you and I did. I thought if I told you I wanted to move to LA you’d say no. I was afraid that if I told you I was going you’d beg me to stay. Mostly I knew that if you asked me to stay I would. If you asked me to give up my dream for you, I would have done it because I loved you that much. Just disappearing was the only way I knew I could go through with it. If I had known…..if I had known you would have been called up to Anaheim later that season I never would have left. I would have stayed with you, and I still could have made it out here. I’m so sorry,” I cried.

He pulled me to him again and I rested my head on his shoulder. I didn’t know how he was going to react and I waited for a response. He didn’t say anything for a while and I felt a tear fall from his cheek onto mine. That only made me cry harder.

“You were right. I would have asked you to stay,” he whispered pulling away from me. I wiped some tears from my eyes and looked up at him. He avoided looking into my eyes. “I was so selfish, and such an asshole. I would have done exactly what you were afraid of and told you to give up your dreams for me and mine.”

“That wouldn’t have made you an asshole,” I cut in. He looked at me sharply.

“Don’t do that. Yes it would have. Meels, it still hurts that you did that, but I understand. After three years I finally understand. I’m so sorry too.”

“It’s not your fault.” He gave me a half smile before getting up off the couch.

“I should probably get going. Thank you for finally telling me.”

I nodded and watched him grab his stuff and walk out the front door. I wasn’t sure where we stood right now, but I felt better. It felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders now that I’d told Corey what had happened to make me leave three years ago.










Corey listened to Amelia explain why she’d left and he felt like his heart was breaking all over again. He fought the urge to yell or punch something when he realized that she was right. As hurt as he still was about the whole thing, deep down he knew she was right. He knew that he would have begged her to stay in Portland.

He didn’t know how to be without her and he wouldn’t be willing to try. He was sure he would have told her that the odds of her actually making it big were pretty slim and she should just grow up and figure out something more practical. This would have been coming from a guy who played a game for a living. He never realized how selfish he was before. It hit him hard.

She was practically bawling by the time she was done talking. He pulled her to him and replayed the last thing she’d said in his mind. If she’d expected him to end up in Anaheim later that year she never would have left. Should have, would have, could have. Those were always killers, weren’t they? At least he knew she’d never stopped loving him.

The minute she started telling him it wasn’t his fault and he wasn’t an asshole, he knew he had to get out of there. She was doing it, what she said she was afraid of doing. She was pushing her own feelings aside to try to make him feel better, to be there for him. He no longer blamed her for disappearing and he wasn’t going to let her blame herself either.

Even so, it had felt so good to hold her again. It had been the first time he’d held her, really held her, since before she left and he hadn’t wanted to stop. He just knew that he had to. He hadn’t meant to cry. He’d done a pretty good job of keeping it all in, but he’d let one tear fall. That had been enough for him to know that he wasn’t going to be able to be around her and not feel anything.

He shook his head and thought of Ileana. Ileana was his girlfriend, not Amelia. He had to make sure that he didn’t get that confused. God, this was complicated. He clenched his fists around the steering wheel as he drove. Then he did something he knew he’d regret. He slammed on the brakes, ignoring the car horns, and pulled a u-turn in the middle of the road.